Uncertainty

There's a lot going on right now but it's difficult to know how to write about it here, at least without sounding like I'm whining.  I'm not  whining. No, really....

I am reminded by a loved  one that getting things out of my head is always helpful, no matter what. On the other hand, I don't want to feel as  if I am vomiting all  over these pages as a way of making myself feel better. Nonetheless, here goes:

• The nature of my work is changing. 


• My son and his wife are moving away. This is a good thing—she is going to graduate school—but Michigan is a long, long, long way from here.


• My mother has been  in a skilled nursing facility for several weeks getting IV antibiotics for a persistent infection. She's home now, but is still not entirely well. Both of my parents are just plain old. Meanwhile, my shoulder has been giving me trouble, making me feel as if I am getting there myself.


• My friend Debbi is dying.


• I have a coworker who's husband is going through much the same process that Debbi has, but he's only at the beginning.


• My relationship with my wife is shifting. Of course, this happens all the time, as anyone in a long-term relationship can attest. But the big changes are more noticeable and the big, noticeable changes come to pass when big events intervene.


• I have lots of committments to travel, pretty much entirely around my family. These are all good things—my parents, my brother's birthday, visiting my son and his wife (and their lovely kitties, to which I am both deeply attached and seriously allergic, an interesting combination). It is all very good and seriously stressful in aggregate.


• When I am stressed (no surprise here) I tend to eat to excess. As I have shared before, I am not an eat-the-whole-cake kind of overeater. To borrow from  the lexicon of alchoholism, I am a maintenance overeater, not a binger. Which has its downside in my ability to remain in denial about it while I am stuffing my face. And (this is key) my lack of discipline about my eating actually adds to my stress rather than relieving it. In the moment it feels good, but then the feeling  of chaos that comes with being so out of control just adds to the stress.


• OK, and this is the hardest one to write about: I just don't feel very connected to my fellow human beings. My communication with family, coworkers and friends is cursory and strained much of the time, when it happens at all. I yearn for more meaningful contact in my life and fly around trying to be all things to all people falling short (I mean, who wouldn't?)

I have nicknamed all this The Five D's: Distance, Dissolution, Disease, Disability, and Death. A cheery group. The point here is, though, that these happen to us all and happen all the time. We are all moving away from each other, if not geographically, then emotionally. We are also all moving toward each other; it is a shifting dance. Dissolution, Disease, Disability, Death—these are in the nature of what it is to be alive, at least if one does not die young. We must all face the dissolution of who we are today in order to become who we will be tomorrow. That it happens gradually for most of us is no proof against having to face the reality of it.

I know that much of what goes on with me is a lack of trust. My meditation group was talking about this just the other day. I don't trust easily and do so rarely. I have pretty good experiential proof that people are not trustworthy. Life itself is one patch of shifting sand after another; it's hard to even trust the ground upon which I stand. Which is the whole point! Yes, the Buddha would say, yes, now you've got it! Nothing is substantial, all is shifting, cloudlike, unable to support your weight. Lie back. There is nothing to do. Nothing to be. Nothing to become but free. It is enough.